Senator Gerard Craughwell- speech from 18 Nov 2021

Thank you very much, Chairman. I appreciate the witnesses taking time to come in and deal with these serious issues. I will start first and foremost. I want to go through a series of questions here, so I am going to start with Ms O'Keefe. Ms O'Keefe, I understand that you are soon to depart the service in the Department of Transport. I hope you do not feel you are being thrown under the bus today. I wonder if you could confirm for me that the Department of Transport does not have any internal expertise in the area of aviation. I understand you advertised for an aviation expert and that advertisement closed in December of last year and you still have not appointed an aviation expert. With respect to the maps that were used by CHC, I understand that those maps were scanned in order to feed into the navigation system. From what I can understand, the scanning left a couple of inches short, which left out Black Rock Island when it scanned into the system. I want to know who was responsible for the oversight there. Would you accept that today, from a statutory point of view, the Irish Aviation Authority, the IAA, has no statutory obligations with respect to SAR and that that is part of the forthcoming air navigation and transport bill? Finally, for the families, I believe now that the families should be encouraged to take legal advice as to which jurisdiction they will go to in order to resolve the loss of their loved ones. There are families that have been left without an income as a result of what has happened here. I do believe that all agencies involved, both the Department of Transport, the Irish Coast Guard and the Irish Aviation Authority, all need to reflect— No attribution of blame. No, I am not making any blame whatsoever. With respect to the Coast Guard, I have here a list of what I would call a damning list of what has been going on in the Coast Guard. In 2014, an accident in Inch, the Marine Casualty Investigation Board report has not produced the Killed Quay tragedy. I understand people are telling me in Killed Quay that they were warning that there was the likelihood of a fatality because of lack of Coast Guard management listening to them. With respect to the crash of Rescue 116, the personal locator beacons apparently did not work when the crew went into the water. Again, back to Ms O'Keefe for a moment. I am trying to understand why the Irish Exchequer paid a private company 7.5 million euros to retrofit their cockpits of their helicopters, to buy night vision navigation goggles, which I understand are still the possession of the Coast Guard, and why that training is not completed today, almost eight years later. I would like to know that. Going on, on the personal location beacons, that was 2017. In 2020, a judgment against Ireland because the Marine Casualty Investigation Board did not conform with the independence requirement. Scrutiny again, a failure of oversight. Captain Steve Clinch's review, that report I understand has not been published. The Comptroller and Auditor-General, two reports from the Comptroller and Auditor-General are absolutely damning. With respect to yourself, Mr Clonan, you say that your trainees come in as probationers and are trained to a standard. How is that standard certified? Who certifies it? What agency certifies it? With respect to the allegations of bullying and harassment, you said that you have the Coast Guard Code. You said you engaged with the GAA on the drafting of that code with respect to volunteers. Did you engage with the volunteers themselves? Did you bring volunteers together and run that code by them? Dispute resolution. Where is the dispute? Full-time members of the Coast Guard have access to legal service. Have volunteers got access to legal service? Do you know, can they avail of the workplace relations committee when it comes to a dispute? Going back to my colleague's questions on the Coast Guard advisory group. The advisory group is not a representative group. I come from a trade union background myself. If you want a representative group, then that representative group has to be something like the Irish Coast Guard volunteers group that has come together now that will be recognised by a trade union or an employee representative body. Whether we like it or not, sooner or later you will have to engage with them. I am not sure. I do understand, Mr Clonan, that you have always been willing to engage with volunteers. I do understand that. The question I have for you now is who is stopping you from engaging with that particular group. If they approach you as a representative group, as the acting director of the Coast Guard, will you engage and negotiate with them and try and resolve the issues that are there? Back to Ms O'Keefe, why is Mr Clonan still an acting director? Why hasn't he been appointed to a permanent post in the organisation? Listen, I deeply respect the work you do, but you need to be engaging with volunteers. One of the clear examples where you are not engaging with volunteers, as outlined in the CNAG's report on the purchase of vehicles, it is clear from that report that there was no engagement with volunteers and that is simply not good enough. Volunteers, as you well know, have to feel that they are part of the family and have to feel that they have a voice. I believe a lot of what we are looking at today is because there is a lack of a voice. Do remember, and I would ask you to pass it on to your people, bullying and harassment and specifically bullying is an offence against the person and at some stage somebody will take an action against your organisation. You are only one man and you are here in the hot seat and I feel somewhat for you today, but you have answered your questions well, you have defended your organisation. I would like you to get out on the ground and fix the problems that are there. I do believe there is a commitment from you to do that and I would like you to do it urgently. If there is something impeding that from your point of view, come back to this committee and we will work on it. Chairman? Obviously in terms of roles and that is private not to be discussed here today in terms of your board or your respective roles, but can you just deal with the specific issues of I suppose the number of it with Senator Crockwell is, if you have a representative body established and we have yet to receive the – have you been able to locate the terms of – have you been able to print it and circulate it? Why, if you have a representative group that comes together, why would you not recognise that representative group like the Irish Coast Guard Volunteers Association has been formed? I have a representative group, it is the Coastal Union Advisory Group and they are more than a representative group because they are engaged in advising us and working with us on operations, and equipment, they do. I do not appoint them and they come together and they represent each of the functions. Are they appointed by the volunteers? Yes. Well, therein lies the problem. If you have two separate groups within the organisation that are trying to establish two separate representative groups, then you have a serious problem. Well, I have one group within the organisation for the last 20 years and it is more than a representative association. Representative association unions do not deal with management and operations and purchase of equipment and all that, but this representative group does. We are joined at the hip, as I said earlier. I think the issues we have here are grievances. Maybe that is the problem. Maybe that is the problem. But there are people voted by the volunteers to represent them in all aspects from equipment, PPE, the way they do their business, the stuff we buy for them. The CNAG says that you did not engage with volunteers. On that particular issue, yes. Back in 2014. If that is one example, if we examine more, we will find more. It is clear. Transport was purchased that was totally and utterly unsatisfactory. What we do at the beginning of the year is sit down with the CURY and go through the plans of the purchases and the services we are delivering and the opportunity there is you are buying this, you are doing this, you are doing that and they are fully engaged in it. Mr Clonan, with your respect, I have read the CNAG report, as I have other members. That was unfortunate. Mr Clonan, once it was below half a million, it did not have to go out, it could be done through the Coast Guard itself and it was €160,000 of a contract. That contract miraculously ended up becoming €1.4 million. Therefore, when it was put out for public tender, it was a nested value of €160,000. Therefore, a business case was not required to go to the Department. The CNAG report is accurate and factual and what it says is that the Department did not get value for money or anything near it. With your respect, Mr Clonan, how did that happen? How did you get a situation where you put out a tender for €160,000 which did not require any business case to go to the Department and that suddenly ballooned up into a $1.4 million contract that never got the Department approval? How did that happen? How in the name of God did that happen within the Irish Coast Guard? We talk about corporate changes and whatever. I was on the PSC. That is as damning a report as I have seen. You have held your hand, but the question is, how did it happen? How? The procedure is where it followed. The report which the CNAG did recently in relation to those vehicles is, as Eugene has said, fairly damning. It relates to something that happened in 2014. The recommendations of the report, we are holding up our hands too. We can't say there is anything wrong with the recommendations in the report. We are accepting the recommendations in the report and we are going to implement them. Prior to the publication of the report, the Department had been in the process of strengthening its corporate governments in the area of procurement. This involved a line... Ms O'Keefe, Ms O'Keefe, I am sorry. We have only one question here. How did it happen? It is all very well saying that you are changing systems, right? We have a fiduciary duty as public representatives to get value for money for the public purse. Two things happened here. It was put out for tender for £160,000, so it did not have to go to any business case to the Department. It ballooned up by nearly ten times to £1.4 million and it still did not get approved from the Department. Not only that, the trucks that were bought were grossly inadequate, so it fails on every account, right? The question is, and I read the report, I still have not got an answer from anyone as to how it happened. Mr Clonan, if it was on your watch, you would have been the Deputy Chief of the Coast Guard at the time. How did this happen? You do not know even at this point? Mr Clonan, we have the report. The report from the CNG was in 2020. It was brought to our attention by our Deviation Management System in early 2020. When was the first time that the Coast Guard knew about this discrepancy of a boat? The first time I knew about it was when the Deviation Management happened in early 2020. Mr Clonan, Mr Chairman, somebody in the Coast Guard was speaking about this. You go to tender for $100,000 and suddenly it starts to balloon, so surely somebody had to sit down and say, lads, do you know what? We did not include this and we did not include that and we need to do this and we need to do that, and you were at management level at that time. Surely to God you sat down and discussed this €1.4 million purchase? Mr Clonan, has any disciplinary action been taken against anyone in the Irish Coast Guard on foot of this stark and appalling revelation? Mr Clonan, No. Mr Clonan, Why not? Mr Clonan, As I said, I do not want to make a— Mr Clonan, For instance, the people that are involved in the procurement and doing the work within the Irish Coast Guard. Are they still working in the Irish Coast Guard? Mr Clonan, Back in 2014, I could not be 100 per cent, but I think so. There may be one or two gone. I am not sure. Mr Clonan, With your respect, Rhys, this is— Mr Clonan, We are very unhappy. I am very unhappy with it. Mr Clonan, With your respect, Mr Clonan, Your corporate governance and your financial systems were sleeping. You did not know about this until the CNAG brought it to your attention. That meant that this had gone through. The department was not aware of it. Ms O'Keefe, were you aware of it in the department? I was not aware of it, no, at that stage, but what I can say, Chairman, if it is any help, Mr Clonan, Would you have been there? Mr Clonan, We are taking this extremely seriously in the department. Mr Clonan, No, no, no, I am asking. I am asking about the fiduciary and the carpet. Were you the Assistant Secretary over this section at that moment in time, Ms O'Keefe? Ms O'Keefe, No, I was not. I was not. But just to note that we are, because of some of the questions that you are now asking, Chairman, we are now embarking on another review on the issues raised in the special report and on other related issues. Why did I refer the purchase of vehicles to the controller and auditor general? Because people within the service were aware of what had happened and came to me with their complaint. This is all part of a system that is just broken. And because I could not get answers, I went to the CNAG and said, you have a look at this. And I was absolutely shocked by what came back out of two reports so far from the CNAG and I have asked for other ones. There is a need for a form of disciplinary procedure. You need to do. The question is, how did this happen? And on behalf of the volunteers up and down the country, who are, we are here today because of them. We accept the work you do and we will support you in terms of extra resources. Ironically, Mr Cronin, the Coast Guard wasted the bones of 1.4 million of taxpayers' money on something that clearly top management, you were not aware of. You were there. Therefore, it happened at a layer below. The question is, I would have thought at this stage, Mr Cronin, and the Department, some form of disciplinary action needs to take place here forensically to find out how this happened. It is not good enough to come in to us and say, oh, we will take on board what the CNAG is saying. I brought this up today and, in fairness, Senator Crockwell initiated this whole process. But this is damning in terms of the Irish Coast Guard and the fact that even the procedures, Ms O'Keefe, within the Department in terms of overseeing what the Irish Coast Guard are doing. What allocation of funding does the Irish Coast Guard get from your Department every year, Ms O'Keefe? Can I just come back, Chairman, on the question of the special report? We are taking this special report extremely seriously. We cannot answer some of the questions that you have today here on the special report. We are not able to do it. Those questions are clearly questions that you are asking and that we need to be able to answer. Mr O'Keefe, that is not good enough. I am sorry. If I could just say that we are carrying out, this has been taken very seriously at the highest levels within the Department, and we are carrying out another review. We are already carrying that out on the issues raised in the special report and with a view to answering some of the answers. The final question I have, Mr Clonan. I think it is 17 vehicles that were purchased, 18. Where are they at the moment? Ms O'Keefe, I have to leave that to Mr Clonan. To emphasise that we are taking this very seriously and we are carrying out a further review on that report with a view to answering some of those questions. We will be following up on that, Ms O'Keefe. Can I answer? The procurement process does not stand up to most of them. That is the first thing. We have bought 18 vehicles. The 18 vehicles are for the Clif Teams, the Clif Teams to carry their equipment. They also provide facilities for the Clif Teams. Are they in operation? Mr O'Keefe, they are, yes. All of them. But this? No, they are not. Can I finish? It is very important that I get this crisis and it is something that has not got out there. If you know what I mean. Clif Teams operate up narrow lanes and not one vehicle will do the job for them. If otherwise it is a truck and the truck will not go up the lanes. What I need is a mix of vehicles, 4x4s, quads and the vans. Did you buy them fully equipped or did you buy empty vehicles? The contract was to buy the vehicle and get them fitted out. There was one contract to get all that done and or fitted out. What the thing is with the volunteers and this is not, this is the reason why they should be brought in the beginning. The intention was not to carry all the equipment on the van. You could not get them onto the van, if you know what I mean. The volume, just the van was bought to carry, to replace the existing van and also to keep a mix of vehicles. When you are going up the side of a mountain, going up the Clif face, you know Doolin, you know the Clif some water. A truck does not do it. You need 4x4s, you need the quads and you need a van to carry the excess equipment and trailers. Mr Clif and you appreciate that we are going to come back to this. Furthermore, because the contract was only 160,000, only two people tendered for it because obviously it was not seen as in any way a beneficial contract. So you two contractors went in and by God it was Christmas time, they certainly had a contract that went for 160,000 up to 1.4 million. We have to come back to it. Can I just get an answer from the department on the statutory responsibility of the IAA with respect to Search and Rescue? I will pass that to Mr O'Flaherty. Mr O'Flaherty Sure, thanks Senator for the question. First need to say that the IAA is statutory responsible for issuing air operator certificates and indeed Search and Rescue approvals, of which there is one, as you understand currently, for the operator who is currently contracted. That covers the aviation satiation regulation and oversight as well as oversight of the operational responsibility of the coordination. Mr O'Flaherty I want you to deal specifically with the pre-R116 accident. Were the IAA statutorily obliged to oversee the Search and Rescue operation? Yes or no? Mr O'Flaherty Yes, because the role of issuing air operation certificates and Search and Rescue approvals were assigned to the IAA. I mean, as you are aware, Senator, some of this is copper fastened in the air navigation and transport bill now and provides further clarity and indeed some of the arrangements that are put in place under the National SAR plan in terms of the Regulators forum as well ensures that there is greater coordination and clarity of roles. But yes, indeed they acted in that way, they inspected, they received safety cases, they exercised oversight in respect of safety management. But the statutory position around this is strengthened in the air navigation and transport bill. It ensures that when they make regulations that apply to the Coast Guard, that they consult with the Coast Guard and consider the public benefit of granting exemptions from the standard rules of the year. Mr O'Flaherty, I think we can sum this up by saying that the current bill, the air navigation bill, will fix their problem. I think that commercial air transport permissions, Yes, Mr O'Flaherty. Thank you. Mr O'Flaherty, thank you. Thank you. Mr O'Flaherty. Thank you. Mr O'Flaherty, thank you. Thank you. Mr O'Flaherty, thank you. And the Department has already been consulted on them, Mr O'Flaherty, Mr O'Flaherty, you have to conclude Mr O'Flaherty… Mr O'Flaherty, Mr O'Flaherty, you will have to conclude Mr O'Flaherty. Mr O'Flaherty, he has to put clarity that the IAA has to prove that the the IEA have developed and have submitted to the Department of Consultation.